Forty Millenniums of Cultivation, page 1478
Li Linghai sneered and then suddenly shrieked, "General Dongfang, do you really believe that the four Kurfürst families will fall back and let go of the fat meat next to their mouths? This is just a delaying trick. After they are back to themselves and figure out the strength of the reformists, they will certainly come for retaliation. Don't regret what you did when your doom comes!"
"Your Grace, I've made up my mind. You can stop your futile argument."
Dongfang Sheng said emotionlessly, "I find it impossible to trust you with all the secrets that you have been keeping, unless you tell us everything first, including where the resources to build the Deep Sea Fleet came, how you achieved your marvelous Cultivation, and also… how you went missing after a blink when you snuck into the depths of the royal library a moment ago. What happened exactly? Where were you?"
"Yes, just confess everything, my good granddaughter."
Li Jiande coughed violently for a while again and managed to continue, "Confess all the secrets and agree to our conditions, and you will still be the most honorable queen of the Imperium of True Human Beings. You will still be involved in the distribution of the interest in the postwar reconstruction. In the game of power, I'll do my best to keep a place for you."
Li Linghai completely calmed down.
Her transparent eyes seemed to have lost the heat of a human, releasing gloomy a fire that burned toward all directions.
Combing her hair that was like a white waterfall, she said casually, "What if I don't want to confess?"
"Then we will have to invite Your Grace to somewhere else to talk!"
"Acyclic Earth" Yun Kuohai rubbed his enormous hands and grinned hideously. "Don't blame us for being too merciless. I believe that Your Grace will certainly tell us everything that happened in the past hundred years in the end!"
"Give up your dying struggles, and don't make a scene."
Li Jiande also frowned and said, "Our men are everywhere. All your subordinates in the Deep Sea Fleet who are loyal to you have been controlled. Even the control system of the defense arrays in the royal palace has been compromised by us!
"Seven barriers have been set up here. You cannot even send a single telepathic thought out. It is impossible for you to call 'Vulture Li Yao' or anybody for help. I regarded you as an unparalleled expert at the peak of the Divinity Transformation Stage when I planned the arrest carefully. You don't stand any chance at all. Is it time to admit your failure, my good granddaughter?"
"Is it?"
Li Linghai smiled without giving a reply. Black veins suddenly protruded from her pale face and wriggled like thousands of worms. Her smile was more and more mysterious and aggressive.
She was still combing her long hair that was like a white waterfall. However, as her pure hands waved, her white hair that felt like ice and frost turned black inch by inch from the top!
The devastating white in the beginning turned into an immeasurable black. It was almost like a certain unique coating that could absorb all the visible and invisible light!
No, not just the hair, even her white eyes were injected with the black fog that was like ink. Soon, there was nothing but blackness in her eyes, as if two mini black holes had been embedded on her gorgeous face.
In the blink of an eye, her hair turned entirely black without any sign of whiteness, and there was not the least light in her eyes anymore. The white queen had completely become the black queen!
"I—I—Your emperor never knows what 'failure' is!"
The black queen grabbed her hair that was waving madly like tentacles and burst into crazy laughter.
Chapter 2317: An Emperor Does Not Joke! |
Crack! Crack! Crack!
Together with her mad laughter, the earth below her feet fell apart, and countless gaps darted to all directions like black blades. Explosions resembling thunder were echoing from the core of the planet!
Very soon, centered at Li Linghai's feet, the cracks had already spread to thousands of meters away. The earth was like a farmland suffering from a drought, broken and rugged!
BOOM! CRACK! BOOM!
The thunderous explosions from below the ground were more and more loud and astounding, sounding like both the drumming of the malicious ghosts at the deepest level of hell and the roars of the ravenous beasts that had slept for thousands of years and just woken up.
The thunder and roars from the center of the planet seemed to have attracted the spiritual energy and the magnetic field in the sky. It was a peaceful night with a bright moon and shining stars a moment ago, but all of a sudden, dark clouds were rolling over like enormous tides, colliding and fighting with each other into gigantic vortexes. It seemed that the dark night had opened countless dark eyes that were staring at all the creatures on the ground. Some of the black clouds were dangling from the night sky like tentacles to such a low altitude that they seemed to be tying everybody's neck!
Everybody felt that their heart was pounding, and it was difficult to breathe. It was almost as if they might be devoured by the dark clouds at any moment!
Suddenly—
The thunders below the ground were synced to the same pace, and the hard ground several kilometers around seemed to have turned into a soft ocean. On the surface of the ocean, overwhelming tides were sweeping.
Some places collapsed deeply, as if immeasurable hollows and faults had appeared below them, and some places had stone pillars and stalagmites that were dozens of meters tall rising. They were both like the tusks of the underworld fiends and a forest of bloodstained blades!
Chi! Chi! Chi! Chi!
Between the stalagmites and the gaps that were biting each other, the most intense black gas was spurting out like a volcano eruption. When the black air darted to the midair, it turned into thousands of raging, hideous black dragons that hovered above everybody's head with bloodshot eyes!
The black dragons below the ground and the cloud tentacles from the night sky finally joined each other. Like a monolithic black cage, they sealed more than half of the capital!
Li Linghai stood on the steepest stalagmite majestically. Her black hair that looked like tentacles was dancing even more violently. Her long robe, which was pure and white in the beginning, was corrupted by the black gas into the darkness as hopeless as the night sky. The two black swirls inside her eye sockets were growing larger and larger, almost swallowing the entire royal palace, the entire capital, and even the entire universe!
Such astonishing changes covered the three super experts at the peak of the Divinity Transformation Stage, as well as Li Jiande, Dongfang Sheng, and all the Nascent Soul Stage experts ambushing at the edge, in cold sweats. Their blood and souls were almost entirely frozen!
What—what kind of "domain" is this?
The few super experts were all intimidated.
After one reached the Divinity Transformation Stage, they would be able to implement a "domain" free at will. By combining the world around them together with their own vitality field, they would become the unquestionable masters of an area.
Li Jianyi, Yun Kuohai, and Song Huanzhen were all experienced experts in the Divinity Transformation Stage who had been famous for a long time. Naturally, they all had their own "domains" and profound knowledge on the activation, utilization, and tricks about the "domain".
However, it had never occurred to them that somebody could unleash such a horrifying domain that the whole nature seemed to be under her control!
Was she really at the beginning or middle level of the Divinity Transformation Stage as the intelligence suggested?
Even though they were at the peak of the Divinity Transformation Stage, they were unable to trigger such a domain even if they burned their lives and souls desperately without caring about the cost!
The lumps on "Devilish Abyss" Li Jianyi's bald head were like racing hearts that had just been through intense sports, and a brilliance hundred times more dazzling than sunlight was shooting out of his eyes. He had boosted all his mental power to resist the terrifying domain that Li Linghai had created.
"Acyclic Earth" Yun Kuohai's both arms had been expanded twice. At first look, it was almost like three equally magnificent bodies were sharing the same head. His hands that were as huge as fans were also uttering cracking explosions. At first, the bronze-colored skin became rough and grew a layer of dense scales. Then, sharp thorns occupied the fingertips and the back of his hands. Two crystal-like objects the size of a goose egg also protruded out of his palms.
The two crystal-like objects were glittering in orange brilliance, like the barrels of two crystal cannons that were ready to be launched!
The "sword balls" around "Star Breaker" Song Huanzhen were shrieking as if alive. Congregating a small tide around her, they rolled nonstop and unleashed sword auras more than ten meters long now and then, competing with the black dragons and the cloud tentacles in the midair nonstop. However, no matter how her sword auras cut the black gas and the dark clouds apart unstoppably, the dark forces were always recovered in the blink of an eye.
The three hunters who had been confident of their victory previously sensed the most primitive threat at the same time. Their cells were all letting out intuitional moans.
Dongfang Sheng, who had just chosen to be a traitor, was so shocked and sweating so hard that he did not know what to do at all.
"Silver Fox" Li Jiande activated the spiritual shield of his medical chair at the earliest time, turning the medical chair into a fully-enclosed medical cabin covered in yellow light, trying to resist the scourge of the black gas and the dark clouds.
While he was also in the Divinity Transformation Stage, he was not a battle-type Immortal Cultivator. Besides, he had been catching his last breath for years in a poor health condition. How could he stand such an intense competition?
He intended to run away immediately, but there was already no time. Thousands of streams of black gas and dark clouds surged through his spiritual shield, sabotaging the power rune arrays of the medical cabin. He was fixated to the battlefield, unable to move anymore.
"You… You are not Li Linghai!"
Even Li Jiande, who always had everything planned out, changed his expression greatly as he paled out. A dense layer of cold sweat was gathering among his wrinkles, only to be vaporized by his brain that was functioning at a high speed immediately. "Who are you? Who are you exactly?"
Narrowing her black eyes in great satisfaction, Li Linghai seemed to be dwelling in the domain that had not been unleashed for a thousand years. Her countenance, charisma, and even gestures were entirely different from when she was white-haired and white-eyed.
Completely ignoring the five Divinity Transformation Stage experts and dozens of Nascent Soul Stage experts, she opened her hands and enjoyed it for a long time, before she finally glanced at Li Jiande and smiled. "'Silver Fox' Li Jiande, the oldest politician of the Imperium today, truly deserves his name. Your emperor has been too focused on Prime Minister Dongfang Wang to have paid enough attention to you, which almost led to a disaster.
"What a shame. If you had taken action a few days earlier in another place, it would've been possible for you to cause certain trouble to your emperor.
"But you are doing it today and in the royal palace? Hehe. Hehehehe. You are truly… asking to be killed!"
"… Your emperor?"
Everybody finally heard how Li Linghai was addressing herself.
It was a title that even the four Kurfürsten did not dare to take over. Why was Li Linghai—
"Are you not curious about what I got from the underground palace? Then, open your eyes and observe!"
Li Linghai's smile was more and more intimidating, giving the feeling that her words were the inviolable law of nature. Whoever was looked at by her eyes that looked like black holes would feel chilled and the urge to worship her. Their every breath and heartbeat were so heavy that their throat and chest seemed to have been stabbed by a saber!
"You are just being pretentious!"
"Silver Fox" Li Jiande seemed to have realized something. Changing his face abruptly, he roared at the loudest of his voice, "Kill her! Let's attack together and kill her! She can't be too strong! She must've used all her spiritual energy to unleash the domain. She is just bluffing and scaring you so that she can take down each one of you separately! Kill her! This is the best opportunity. If we miss it, nobody will be able to restrain her in the future!"
"Tsk, tsk, tsk. It seems that you have guessed who I am. As expected of 'Silver Fox'!"
After a creepy smile, Li Linghai suddenly bulged her eyes and roared thunderously, "You recalcitrant subjects have the guts to point your blades at your emperor! All of you should be sentenced to death, and your entire families should be minced into pieces!"
Her roar almost blew up everybody's soul immediately.
"However—"
She was so intimidating a moment ago as if she were determined to kill thousands of people, but she suddenly concealed her dominance and sneered, "I am in desperate need of hands right now. Considering that you were unaware of my identity, I can be lenient enough to give a few of you one last opportunity of expiation.
"Listen up. Not just the Divinity Transformation Stage guys in the front but also those behind in the Nascent Soul Stage; whoever acknowledges his mistake, obeys me, and gives me a hand to kill the rebellions, I shall forgive his wrongdoings in the past. Not only will his life and family be saved, but the most promising future will be awaiting them too.
"However, if you are all obstinate enough to resist me to the end, then, not only will you be killed yourselves, none of your family members will get away either. To give them the most excruciating agony, they will all be cut into pieces, and their souls will be plucked from their bodies!
"Until I slay the last of you, the offer stands. Whoever stabs a knife into the back of someone around you will be recognized as a great loyalist!
"However, you'd better make it fast if you want to stab a knife into your partner's back, because I will only spare three of you!
"Do you understand? Only three of you, as well as your families, will be kept alive. The rest of them will all be sentenced to death!
"General Dongfang, you are the same. Although you just betrayed me, I still would like to give you the opportunity of expiation. However, a piece of advice: you better do it fast.
"Although you are all in the Divinity Transformation Stage, their specialization is fighting, while you are more adept at commanding fleets. Should the four of you kneel before me begging for mercy at the same time, and since I will only keep three of you alive, I fear that you won't be able to defeat those three battle-type experts!
"Hehe. The only way of survival for you and the Nascent Soul Stage experts at the edge is to stab the three battle-type Divinity Transformation Stage experts in the back while they are fighting me. In that case, I will certainly acknowledge your contribution.
"Think about it carefully. Life is invaluable. Besides, you have not just your own life in your hands but also the lives of your entire family. Whoever among you lot dies, your entire family will die together with you in the most miserable way!
"Rest assured. An emperor does not joke. When I say that I will execute your entire family, they shall be executed!"
Chapter 2318: United and Devoted! |
The creepy speech, spoken with her casual and relaxed tone, gave a weird but convincing feeling.
The three super experts at the peak of the Divinity Transformation Stage never felt as much pressure even when they were surrounded by a whole fleet before.
The black gas from below the ground and the dark clouds in the sky turned into vipers that crawled into every pore on their body.
"Kill her!"
His hair and beard exploding, Li Jiande roared desperately and in fear, "She is certainly not as strong as she appears, or she wouldn't have needed to chatter on at all! As long as we remain united and devoted, we will certainly be able to kill her!"
"Can you?"
The four Divinity Transformation Stage experts, including Dongfang Sheng, were still hesitating. Li Linghai had already walked down from the top of the sharp stalagmite on the invisible stairs in the midair with a hideous smile.
Her every step in the midair was like a heavy drumming from the deepest level of hell. The rugged earth had even more cracks, and the dark clouds on the night sky were also rolling like dirty tides. All the stalagmites around were shrinking and shivering. Everyone's heart seemed to be breaking out of the chest and escaping in a panic!
"Then, show me how good the new-generation Immortal Cultivators of the Imperium are after a thousand years!"
Li Linghai's skin was still fair and translucent, but her fingernails had turned into the same astounding blackness. The black streaks also sprawled out along her fingerprints, donning her hands in a pair of glamorous and weird gloves.
She extended her right hand to "Devilish Abyss" Li Jianyi in a "crawl over now" gesture.
The lumps on "Devilish Abyss" Li Jianyi's head suddenly expanded as if more than ten horns were rising high at the same time. His eyes were almost exploding when they released brilliance that was like swirls, before they collided with Li Linghai's eyes brutally.
In the next moment, their vitality fields were all activated to the maximum.
It was a competition between "domains", like two abysses staring at each other.
Everybody else could only see the air around them blurred and twisted, as if they were about to vanish from the three-dimensional universe into warped smoke.
Through the vague smoke, it could be seen that "Devilish Abyss" Li Jianyi's face was gloomy. He was now angry, now gnashing his teeth, and now intimidated from the bottom of his heart, as if he were begging for mercy.
"Pu!"
After only one second of the collision of eyes, the few lumps on "Devilish Abyss" Li Jianyi's forehead were already collapsing quickly, and he vomited blood hard. Staggering backward for a few steps, he looked as lethargic as if all his blood had been sucked up by Li Linghai.
